


Wicked Games

by PepperF



Series: Diego whump [12]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (''broken trust''), ANYHOW, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BY BEING THE WALMART CATWOMAN TO HIS WALMART BATMAN, F/M, I could do some more, I have seen it in progress and it is SO AWESOME YOU GUYS, I just needed to stop there to fulfil the whump prompt, I love this so much I have actually commissioned fanart, Whumptober 2020, also I hate this title but I can't think of a better one so there you go, bc the ending isn't really an ending, feel free to tell me yours, have I written enough tags now?, he'd have done his vigilante schtick in Dallas ofc, my favourite Catwoman is Michelle Pfeiffer, oh and I should say that I'm going to write a follow-up to this one, so how would Lila have contacted him?, this is my favourite headcanon so far, what if Diego didn't get himself locked up in 1963?, which you will see when it's done!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 09:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26969749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperF/pseuds/PepperF
Summary: "Number Five," says her mum, the Handler. "Him and all his little brollies.""What about them?""Get close, find out how much they know." She taps her lip. "The idiot with the knives, he might be your easiest target. How are you going to do it?"Lila thinks about it. "Well, I do have one idea..."
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts
Series: Diego whump [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951318
Comments: 18
Kudos: 49
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Wicked Games

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Bethany for beta-reading this and permitting some of the Britishisms to stay this time bc Lila is British hoorah! ;) Also, she pointed out that this is both Diego whump AND Lila whump, so, bargain.
> 
> Now with sequel! [My Girl Is A Heartbreak](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27305701)

The room smells weird, but it's cheap and convenient. When the old woman dies of natural causes (i.e. snooping through Lila's shit), Lila continues to feed her cats. She's not a monster, okay?

\---

"Number Five," says her mum, the Handler. "Him and all his little _brollies_."

"What about them?"

"Get close, find out how much they know." She taps her lip. "The idiot with the knives, he might be your easiest target. How are you going to do it?"

Lila thinks about it. "Well, I do have one idea..."

\---

He's not hard to find, really: there aren't any other costumed vigilantes running around Dallas in 1963.

Their first fight is on a rooftop—the first of many, although she doesn't know that at the time. She has to drive him back right to the edge of the building before he finally responds with a brutal left-hook that's designed to take her down hard and fast—and she's pretty sure that's some manners crap, so she plays the injured woman and he immediately starts to apologize. A gentleman: good, she can use that. 

Once she has him dangling over the edge of the roof, saved only by her improvised whip slung around his arm, she takes a minute to consider him. "I hope you've got a day job that you're not so shit at." She knows he does, in fact—she's seen him at work as an usher in the cinema, even bought popcorn from him once. She could have gotten to know him that way, but this is much more fun.

Oddly, for the circumstances, he's considering her right back. "What's your name?" he calls up.

She thinks about this. "Michelle," she says. His eyes narrow in suspicion. Looks like she wasn't the only one to go through a Batman phase.

It's kind of fun, a good fight once he stops holding back—and when in the end he throws her off a roof and onto the roof of a passing truck, she has to admit that she should have seen it coming.

\---

"Julie," she says.

"Your real name, I said."

She widens her eyes innocently, and he scowls at her. 

"Fine, _Julie_ ," he says, and gets under her guard with a blow to the ribs.

\---

"Don't you feel a little overdressed in all that black leather?"

"Seriously?" He gestures to her with the knife in his hand.

She looks down at herself; she'd actually forgotten the outfit. It's surprisingly comfortable. "Yes, well. Catsuits are very sixties chic."

"What was that?" 

He's looking at her like he's spotted something amiss, she's not sure what, but she deflects his attention anyway, kicking his legs out from under him. He retaliates with a knife throw, and they're back into it, until this time she's scrabbling for grip on sheer tiles over a long drop, and suddenly a strong hand closes around her wrist. He yanks her up, right into his arms.

"Well," she purrs, "what a gentleman." He has nice lips, she notices, and pretty dark eyes glinting at her through his mask. She'd already worked out that the muscles under his costume are real.

"Sixties chic."

"What?"

"That's what you said. That's a weird way to phrase it, don't you think?"

Damn, she hadn't thought he'd pick up on that. He's a perceptive little sod sometimes. "Well, isn't it? It's very...groovy. By the way, your fly's undone." 

When he looks down, she knees him in the balls and makes her escape.

She'll need to be more careful in future.

\---

"I think they're hiding something," she tells her mum. "I need more time."

\---

He's got her trapped, his whole body pinning her down, and she's been thinking about something like this for a while now, so she arches her back and grinds against his crotch.

She feels his harsh breath puff out in surprise against her neck, and a second later, she's free. The domino mask makes it a little harder to tell, but she's pretty sure his blush would be obvious from space, and he's biting his lip like a schoolboy. "I—uh—I'm not—I wasn't—"

It's delicious, how flustered he gets. He fancies her; she can use that. "Weren't you?" she says. "I was."

She can see the movement of his throat as he swallows. 

\---

"Just a few more days."

She doesn't think her mum believes her.

\---

"Anne," she gasps, as his fingers claw at her hips. 

"Liar," he grinds out. But he keeps moving anyway, pressing against her, and oh god, ohgodohgod _ohgod..._

Afterwards, he kisses her gently, lingering with soft brushes of his lips against hers, even though they should probably both get down off this total stranger's rooftop before someone calls the police. She can practically hear his thoughts: _what does this mean? Are we still enemies? Do we have to go back to fighting straight away, or can I enjoy the afterglow a little longer? Has this whole thing been some kind of fucked-up mating ritual? Are we dating now?_

"I'm starving," he says, startling her out of her thoughts. "You wanna go get some food? Or coffee?"

She's too surprised to come up with an excuse. "Um. Yes? I think. I'm—I could—I could eat something."

He grins against her mouth, and her brain short-circuits at how nice that feels. "Was that a yes?"

"Don't piss me off, or it'll be a no again before you can blink."

\---

They get barbecue from a little mom-and-pop place he knows. He pays, because he's still a gentleman even if he fights her with no-holds-barred these days, and they sit in the darkest corner and clink their beers. He's even cuter with his mask off. He ducks his head when he smiles, like he's embarrassed about showing that much softness, and it makes something inside her twist strangely.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks, two beers down and feeling light and free. "All this—this costumed vigilante nonsense."

His gaze is fond but exasperated. "You keep asking shit like that, like you're not spending your nights dressed in black, lurking on rooftops," he points out.

"Well, yeah, but I'm..." She can't think of a good response to that, one that's not, 'it seemed like the best way to catch your attention'. Besides, she's kind of come to enjoy it—some crime, some thwarting, their whole little cat-and-mouse game. "I'm committing crimes, aren't I. So it makes sense."

"Crimes? What crimes? Last week I stopped you from breaking into a pet shop."

"There was a very cute kitten in the window," she says primly. "And the shop was closed, so _technically_..." She throws up her hands.

He takes a swig of beer, watching her thoughtfully. "Are you ever gonna tell me what's going on with you?"

"Going on?"

He rolls his eyes, but lets it drop. And when they're heading out, he catches her arm, pulls her back into the shadows where no one can see them, and kisses her like he really means it.

\---

Her mum has checked out of the hotel when Lila goes to update her. There's no note.

\---

They spend an entire evening making out on top of the cinema, overlooking a bank that she was pretending to be thinking about robbing so he could show up and thwart her. They don't even have sex, and it's still the best night of her entire life.

They sit on the edge of the roof with their feet dangling, and he's kissing his way down her neck, when it spills out of her, without conscious thought. "Lila."

"Huh?"

"That's my name. Lila."

He lifts his head, frowning. "I don't think I know that one. Which version of Catwoman did she play?"

"No version. Well, unless you count running around Dallas rooftops dressed in black. It's my name."

He looks into her eyes for so long that she wants to squirm away, deflect his attention, throw a punch, anything. It's like he's looking straight through her mask—not the domino one, but the one she wears all day, every day—and into the core of her.

"Lila," he says, softly. On his tongue, it's a song.

\---

"I'm sorry, darling," says her mum. "But really, you have only yourself to blame." The business end of her little Derringer pistol is pointed unwaveringly at Diego.

_No, no, no, I need more time,_ she wants to shout. She needs to keep this game going, just for a little longer. Just until she can bear to stop. But shouting never won her an argument with the Handler.

"Honestly, mum, I was finally getting somewhere. I can't believe you ruined my disguise!"

Her mum presses her lips together in a disapproving line. "Darling. Did you really think I wouldn't work out what was happening? And a darn sight sooner than you did, I expect. Your putrid little crush on this..." She gives Diego a quick up-and-down look, "circus act, it's—"

"Hey!"

"—well, it's downright disappointing, honestly. I thought I raised you to have more sense."

" _Mum,_ Jesus. Look, okay, maybe I was playing things a bit close, got carried away—but I had an idea. I've been working towards recruiting him." Her mum scoffs. "No, listen: you're always saying you need more help, right—people who are loyal to you and not just the Commission? Well just look at him. He's _stupidly_ loyal. We can use him."

Mum still looks murderous, and Diego looks like he's barely holding himself back from some rash action, but they're both listening, and that's the key thing. If she can just keep tap-dancing, maybe she can find the right words, the magic ones that will diffuse this situation, make it all work out the way she wants.

"I'll be honest, sweetheart, it's not really your pet's loyalty that concerns me," says her mother. And raises a gun—the Walther—aimed squarely at Lila.

She holds her mother's gaze with all the insouciance she can fake. "You won't kill me," she says.

The Handler's expression is unreadable. "I need to know that I can trust you," she says, which isn't a _no I won't kill you how could you ever think such a thing._

"You can trust me." She doesn't hesitate. Hesitation would imply conflict, and conflicting loyalties would be her death warrant right now.

"And if I put a bullet right between those big, puppy-dog eyes of his, hmm? You'd still be my right-hand girl?" Her thumb caresses the hammer of the Derringer, and terror claws at Lila's throat. 

"Of course."

But her mother still looks dubious. She needs to do better. She has to sell this.

So Lila shrugs, deliberately casual. "Look, kill him if you want. I just think it'd be a waste of a good resource. You taught me to use whatever came to hand out there, to adapt my plans if things changed, so that's what I did. Diego's a good fighter, plus he has those magic knife skills, and once I saw how easy he was to manipulate, I realized he'd be perfect for us. All I had to do was flutter my eyelashes a little, make him think he'd broken through my armour or whatever, and he was as good as sold. I was bringing him in—which you've made all the more difficult now, so thanks for that." She adds a dramatic eyeroll for effect.

"Is that so?" Her mum's smile is gently mocking, but she turns to Diego with apparent courtesy. "And what do you have to say for yourself, young man?"

Diego is staring at Lila, but she can't hold his gaze. "How about, 'go fuck yourself'?" he suggests, turning to the Handler. "I don't need a job, and even if I did, I wouldn't take one from you—or your daughter. No matter how much she flutters her eyelashes," he adds, his tone vicious.

"You realize it's that or death, yes?" asks her mum, as cheerfully as if she was offering him a slice of cake.

Diego gives the gun a dismissive look. "Try it. I'll show you just how good I am."

"Ooh," says the Handler, with a happy little wriggle. "Feisty! I'm tempted to take you up on that." She considers Diego, and Lila can feel her blood run cold. _No, no, no..._ "No. You know what? I'm going to give Lila's idea a chance." She pockets both guns, and turns her cheek. Lila kisses it with numb lips, her head spinning, as Diego makes a sound of disgust and turns on his heel.

"Thanks, mum," she says, feeling weak with relief and nerves.

"You're welcome, darling. Just remember, if you screw this up, I'll put him down myself. Now, go do your thing."

"Yes, mum."

\---

She has to run to catch up with Diego, whose rage and long legs have carried him right out of the parking garage and out onto the street. "Diego, wait up!"

He shakes her hand off his arm. "Leave me alone, Lila. I'm not joining your little—whatever it is."

"Oh come on, don't act so insulted. Especially when you don't even know what we're offering!" She has to hurry to catch up again. "Jesus, what's the big deal? It's a job, not your soul."

"I don't care. I'm not interested in whatever bullshit mind games you've been playing."

"I was only saying that to save your life, you big dumb caveman!"

"Yeah?" He stops short so abruptly that she nearly runs into him. "And what about now? How do I know you're not still lying?" He steps closer. "Why should I believe a single word that comes out of your mouth?"

"I—" Lila chokes on all the things she could say, struck by the anger, and underneath that, the sheer hurt in his eyes.

"Is your name even Lila?"

And that _really_ hurts. 

Before she can come up with an answer, some combination of words to convince him that she was trying to help him, to save him—because she's too busy reeling from the realization that he trusted her, and now he doesn't, and _she wants that back_ —he rolls his eyes and turns on his heel again. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

He's gone before she can pull herself together.


End file.
